My Brother's Keeper

Gage and Kane Takacs, Southeast's two biggest and best wrestlers, owe their respective undefeated records to each other.

As youngsters, the two brothers, who are 15 months apart in age, would naturally tangle with each other.

"We'd get into it, little arguments here and there," Gage said. "Playing a video game, if one of us beat the other, we'd be getting mad about it."

Both brothers are having outstanding seasons after recovering from serious knee injuries that required surgery.

Southeast High School wrestling brothers Gage Takacs, 17, and Kane, 19, on right, each overcame injuries to become dominant competitors this season.STAFF PHOTO / THOMAS BENDER

Last December, Gage tore a ligament in his right knee and suffered cartilage damage in his left knee that ended his season.

Kane tore a ligament in his left knee during his sophomore season and he didn't finish last season because his knee was still bothering him.

"I was scared and I didn't want to re-tear it again," he said.

Kane, 19, is 15-0 as the Seminoles' heavyweight, with only two matches getting extended into the second period.

Gage, 17, is 15-0 in the 220-pound class, where only two of his opponents have extended the match into the second period.

"Kids that don't have brothers don't get the experience of grappling, the aggressive part about it," Gage said. "People who are new to it, I believe, wouldn't do as well. Just having a brother to wrestle around with when I was younger, I think it helped a lot."

In practice the 215-pound Gage and 250-pound Kane wrestle with each other the entire time, using the strengths of the other's game to improve their own.

"If they didn't have each other, neither one of them would be as good as they are," said Southeast wrestling coach Daniel Bradshaw. "Those two push each other. No one else on the team can give them that sort of look. Having each other to work with in practice makes a lot of difference."

"Seeing as we're both strong, we're almost built the same, he's just a little heavier," Gage said. "We put up a good fight against each other. It wasn't as good when I was younger, because I was a lot lighter than him. But now that I'm a senior and he's a senior, we're both close to the same weight so we're really good wrestling partners.

"He uses brute strength and I have good technique, so we both kind of even each other out."

"I try to take him down, push him to where he feels like he's in danger," Kane said. "Where he has to do something to defend himself."

As for who wins, "we're neutral," Kane said. "Sometimes I'll get him, sometimes he'll get me. It's my defense against his offense."

"A lot of times as a coach I have to calm them down," Bradshaw said. "There's no reason for them to get hurt against each other in practice. They're both competitive kids and their nature is to go hard all the time. As big and strong as they are, going that hard, you always have risk of injury. I remind them it's time scale back a little bit and don't do anything silly."

The two brothers have always been competitive with each other.

"We set up a gym in our garage," said their father, Bill Takacs. "They'd go out and see who could lift the most, do the most situps and pushups and anything like that."

Gage has moved up a weight class every year, starting at 152 pounds as a freshman, moving to 170 as a sophomore, where he qualified for the state tournament and finished with a 39-7 record.

He wrestled at 182 last year before tearing a ligament in December, ending his season. He made up for missing wrestling by winning a FHSAA Class 1A state weightlifting championship at 199 pounds as a junior.

While Kane played football for three varsity seasons, starting at right guard as a senior, Gage gave up football after his sophomore year, when he was a backup defensive tackle after playing linebacker on the junior varsity as a freshman.

"I was never actually into (football), I was more talked into it as opposed to me wanting to play," he said. "I just didn't connect too well with it and I just wanted to stick with wrestling and weightlifting."

Wrestling gives him the thrill of victory he couldn't get in football.

"I think it's more the part of just dominating someone on the mat, picking them up and making them feel bad about themselves," Gage sad. "People don't realize when you win that first match and get your hand raised, it's a great feeling. You don't want to let go of that. You just want to stick with it."

The Takacs brothers got into wrestling after taking up jiujitsu in middle school.

They competed in the World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Association championships in California, where Gage won a gold medal and Kane a silver medal.

They also each won three gold medals in the Florida Federation of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships.

"That kind of transitioned them into wrestling," Bill Takacs said.

"Me and Kane always liked watching fights, the UFC and MMA. We both trained in jiujitsu together before high school, like around seventh grade," Gage said. "It was grappling, the same concept of wrestling. So we figured we might as well do it when we came to high school and gave it a try."

During matches, they act as an extra coach for each other matside.

"I'll yell stuff at him, tell him what to do if he's in trouble," Kane said.

"If we see something, we'll both tell each other right after the match, 'You need to do this, instead of what you did,'" Gage said. "Good technique pointers. That helps a lot so we don't make that same mistake next time."

The brothers are going to ratchet up their practice intensity as the district tournament approaches, knowing they will be competing not only against their opponents.

"We're going to see who has the most wins in a row and try to keep up with each other," Kane said.

Last modified: December 17, 2013
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published without permissions. Links are encouraged.